"Orbital ATK said that the OA-7 Cygnus mission, previously planned to launch on an Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, will instead launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the spring of 2017. The company said this is a one-time arrangement, with future Cygnus launches returning to the Antares."

I don't believe the change was about the 300 kg increase in cargo, that's only an increase of 9% over the 3500 kg Antares 230 payload. This would hardly make up for the extra cost of flying on Atlas V. I believe the real reason is if there had been a problem with OA-5 or SpaceX have additional delays with return to flight. Scheduling an Atlas V launch gives much greater assurance for NASA in case there is a problem with Antares or Falcon 9. The extra 300 kg is just a small bonus.

"Orbital ATK said that the OA-7 Cygnus mission, previously planned to launch on an Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, will instead launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the spring of 2017. The company said this is a one-time arrangement, with future Cygnus launches returning to the Antares."

These are only 31 of the 40 originally announced to be deployed from the ISS. I wonder if the remaining nine will follow on a later launch or have dropped out or failed qualification?

My understanding is that the nine cubesats that are not flying were simply not yet ready to launch. They couldn't make the deadline to be delivered to Belgium. Three cubesats couldn't make it to Belgium, but were ready enough to be delivered directly to the US.

« Last Edit: 12/10/2016 05:19 AM by Steven Pietrobon »

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Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1: Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

At ISIlaunch 11 NRCSL 6U deploters were loaded. A 12th canister will be loaded at Nanoracks facilities.For two deployment cycles I'm missing four 6U NRCSL (2x8=16 | 11+1=12).If I'm not mistaken the NRCSL are packed in 24U units (4x 6U NRCSL or in the future 2x 12U or 12U + 2x 6U) and packaged inside a cargo bag. Could three bags launch on OA-7 and one bag launch on SpX-10?

At ISIlaunch 11 NRCSL 6U deploters were loaded. A 12th canister will be loaded at Nanoracks facilities.For two deployment cycles I'm missing four 6U NRCSL (2x8=16 | 11+1=12).If I'm not mistaken the NRCSL are packed in 24U units (4x 6U NRCSL or in the future 2x 12U or 12U + 2x 6U) and packaged inside a cargo bag. Could three bags launch on OA-7 and one bag launch on SpX-10?

Both C37 and C38 flights already have its full flight rosters although not all have been public announced yet. These PSLV flights are currently open in 2017 for secondary payloads:NET May - PSLV - 8 Skysat-CDecember - PSLV - Cartosat-2E

At ISIlaunch 11 NRCSL 6U deploters were loaded. A 12th canister will be loaded at Nanoracks facilities.For two deployment cycles I'm missing four 6U NRCSL (2x8=16 | 11+1=12).If I'm not mistaken the NRCSL are packed in 24U units (4x 6U NRCSL or in the future 2x 12U or 12U + 2x 6U) and packaged inside a cargo bag. Could three bags launch on OA-7 and one bag launch on SpX-10?

Both C37 and C38 flights already have its full flight rosters although not all have been public announced yet. These PSLV flights are currently open in 2017 for secondary payloads:NET May - PSLV - 8 Skysat-CDecember - PSLV - Cartosat-2E

At ISIlaunch 11 NRCSL 6U deploters were loaded. A 12th canister will be loaded at Nanoracks facilities.For two deployment cycles I'm missing four 6U NRCSL (2x8=16 | 11+1=12).If I'm not mistaken the NRCSL are packed in 24U units (4x 6U NRCSL or in the future 2x 12U or 12U + 2x 6U) and packaged inside a cargo bag. Could three bags launch on OA-7 and one bag launch on SpX-10?

Both C37 and C38 flights already have its full flight rosters although not all have been public announced yet. These PSLV flights are currently open in 2017 for secondary payloads:NET May - PSLV - 8 Skysat-CDecember - PSLV - Cartosat-2E

The 9 QB50 sats not flying total 20U. At this late stage perhaps their space was reserved and they will justbe replaced by ballast. In the above manifest there is 10U free space in deployers D10, D11, D12. The remaining 10U and the 11U of these other sats correspond to the remaining 4 6U deployers unaccounted for - D8, D13, D14 and D15 -with 3U capacity unfilled, either with more ballast or one cubesat we haven't identified yet.